New Delhi, Sep 11 (TIWN) Excise duty on petrol went up by a huge 194 per cent while on diesel it rose by a stupendous 512 per cent between 2014-15 and 2021-22 even as crude oil prices remained below $80 per barrel between 2015-16 and 2021-22, thus burdening the common man.

According to official data provided by the Petroleum Ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC), excise duty on petrol was Rs 9.48 per litre and on diesel it was Rs 3.56 per litre in 2014-15 when the NDA government had come to power.

In 2021-22, excise duty on petrol rose 194 per cent to Rs 27.90 per litre and on diesel it rose 512 per cent to stand at Rs 21.80 per litre.

Interestingly between 2015-16 and 2021-22, while excise duties on petrol and diesel rose steadily, crude oil prices remained

consistently below $80 per barrel and even slid below the $50 per barrel mark on three occasions.

While crude oil was at $84.16 per barrel in 2014-15, it fell sharply to stand at $46 per barrel and $47 per barrel in 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively.

A closer analysis of the data reveals that between 2015-16 and 2016-17 when crude oil prices were down by almost half of the 2014-15 levels, excise duty on petrol rose from Rs 17.48 per litre to Rs 21.48 per litre. During the same period, excise duty on diesel rose from Rs 10.26 to Rs 17.33 per litre.

Thus during 2015-17, excise duty on petrol and diesel rose by 22.9 per cent and 68.2 per cent respectively, when crude oil prices were in the range of $46-$47 per barrel.

Even in 2020-21, when crude oil prices fell sharply to $44.82 per barrel from $60.47 per barrel in 2019-20 due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, excise duty on petrol rose from Rs 19.98 per litre on March 13, 2020 to Rs 32.90 per litre on February 2, 2021. A rise of Rs 13 per litre in a span of less than a calendar year.